Concrete reinforcement



},UN1TED STATES PATENT OFFICE.

PHILIP cAianL or NEW YORK, 1v. Y.

CONCRETE REINFORCEMENT.

Specification of Letters Patent. Patented Nov. 9, 1920.

Application filed March 22, 1919. Serial No. 284,356.

To all whom it may concern Be it known that I, PHILIP M. CABELL, acitizen of the Fnite'd States, residing at the city of New York, in theborough of Manhattan and State of New York, have invented certain newand useful Improvements in Concrete Reinforcements, of which thefollowingis a full, clear, and exact description.

This invention relates to the reinforcement of cementitious structuresand is specifically .an improvement upon the reinforcing unit describedin my pending applica tion for Letters Patent Serial No. 228,114, filedApril 12,1918. The reinforcing unit described in said-application ismade up of strand material, such as wire or thin'rods formed into asuccession of loops or strain sections, and pressed into a shape which.adap'ts it to be incorporated in structures of tice that arearrangement of theconvol'u-- tions with respect to each other isdesirable in many instances before the unit is associated with thecement or concrete, for the purpose of distributing its reinforcingValue in the various parts of the structure in accordance with thestrains to which the structure will be subjected in use. For instance, abeam is ordinarily subjectechto greater strain at its intermediateportions than at the ends. Consequently, the intermediate portionsrequire more reinforcement than the ends.- Likewise in other structures,the extremities sometimes require more reinforcement than the middleportions, sometimes graduated strength is required from end toend orfrom one portion to another of a structure. To meet these conditions, Ipropose to manipulate my reinforcing unit in such a way as to condensethe convolutions or bring them close together in those regions of thestructure where the greater strains occur. and separate the convolutionsor lessen their number 1nother local ties where the strains arecorrespondingly less.-

when the unit'isthus manipulated, the clastic nature of the wire ofwhich it will usu' ally bemade, necessitates theuse of stays orfastening devices to hold the convolutionsin their altered positionswith respect to eachothcr until the unit can be associated with theconcrete which then serves to permanently hold the" convolutions intheir distorted or converted relation.

My invention therefore comprehends not only theidea of distributing theconvolutions, along the unit'in proportion to the strains to which .thestructure will be subjected, but to means for temporarily permittingofsuch distribution and retaining the convolutions in the requiredrelation after they have been thus distributed.

. In the accompanying drawings:

Figure 1 is a side elevation of the unit in the first stage of itsconstruction with the stays applied thereto;

Fig.2 is'an edge view of the structure when the convolutions have beenturned sidewise or flattened into a mat, no attempt being 'made toillustrate the stays;

Fig. 3 is a plan of the mat showing the stays applied to the edges; Fig.i is a side view of the unit after it has been bent or folded alonglongitudinal lines to give it a U or gutter-like shape;

Fig. 5 is a perspective view of the gutter-- shaped unit 1n which theconvolutions are opened up or .separated and so held by the stays; and AFig. 6 includes three conventional cross sections of the unit showingvarious gutter shapes or corrugations among others into which'the flatmat may be folded.

The stays comprising a part of the present invention may be applied tothe-unit either when. itis in itsyfirst stage of construction, asshownlin Fig. 1, or when it is in either of the stages indicated inFigs. 2, 3 and 4. The stay" consists of a wire a which is successivelylooped into each of the convolutions b of the unit, in such a manner asto provide slack in the wire abetween the adjacent convolutions b. Theslack or excess of wire between the convolutions permits the latter tobe separated or compressed at will, the wire a. in any relation of theconvolutions tending, by its resistance to bending-and its frictionalengagement with the convolutions. to hold the latter in any relationinto which they may be forcibly brought. I preferably use two of thesestay condition of Fig. 1. or upon the opposite edges when applied to theflat structure of Figs. 2 and 3. Associated with the wire a is aninterlocking wire 0 which is preferably a straight wire or rod runningthrough each loop of the wire a and serving the two functions ofpreventing wire (1- from becoming detached from the convolutions Z) andproviding additional friction between the closely associated wires tomaintaina given relation between them.

Figs. 3 and 5 illustrate the condition of the stay wire a along thoseparts of the unit where the convolutions Z) have been separated to thegreatest possible extent. It will be seen that the loops of the wire aare straightened out practically to their limit and that they are drawntightly against the interlocking wire 0 so tllt'ltICOllSlClQlilblQfriction is introduced at the edges of the unit to hold the variousloops or convolutions Z) in the position to which they have beenadjusted. 'In F ig. l, the stay wire a is illustrated withv more slackin its bends which means that the convolutions b have not been separatedto the full extent permitted by the wire 0 or that they have beencompressed somewhat together. In this condition sufficient friction isdeveloped between the various wires which come together at the edges ofthe unit to temporarily maintain the unit and its convolutions in anydesired position or shape. Obviously any arrangement of stays which willpermit of the convolutions b'being opened or compacted together and willthen hold them in such relation. will serve the purposes and fall withinthe scope of my invention.

In Fig; 3, the dotted lines 6. c indicate the lines along which the flatmat may be folded to produce the guttershaped unit of Fig. 4e and shownalso at in Fig. (5. hen the gutter-like formations shown at g and 71, aswell as of Fig. 6, are used, the stay wire may be applied at the extremeedges, as

shown, and also at any of the lines of folddle portion crowded together.while those at 'condition until the unit is transferred to the beam andassociated with the concrete. The unit may also be curved and bent as awhole to fit into brackets, elbows or other irregular shapes and whenthus deformed will be held temporarily by the stays (I.

I do not limit myself to any particular manner of running or shaping thestay wires or devices so long as they afford the possibility of theconvolutions being moved with respect to one another in theredistribution process described and will hold them in their 1 arrangedpositions.

I claim:

1. The method of preparing a reinforcing unit .for cementitiousstructures consisting in coiling strand material into a spiral. turningthe convolutions of the spiral into planes oblique to the axis of thespiral to convert the spiral into a flat mat, bending the matlongitudinally and finally rearranging the ture.

PHILIP M. CABELL.

